How to Go Back Using the Command Prompt

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: September 10, 2019

The command prompt is great way to navigate through different files and directories on your computer and is relatively straightforward. If you need to navigate back from a directory, the process is simple. This wikiHow shows you how to navigate back in the Command prompt.

Steps

1
Open the Command prompt. You can usually find it by typing “command” into the search bar and selecting it in the search results.
2
Type in the name of the file you want to see. While in the command prompt menu, you can view any files on your computer in a text-only format by typing in the location (usually a disk) and the file name (including any extensions).

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3
Type. cd.. into the prompt. After you press Enter, this command tells the program to navigate back to the previous folder.
- It’s important you type the two dots, since you won’t navigate anywhere if you simply type “cd” into the prompt.
4
Type cd\ into the prompt to go back to the directory. If you need to navigate from a location back to the main command prompt, this command takes you back immediately.

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